I would have mentioned this earlier, but I’ve been crippled with a bog monster infestation – a whole bunch of them set up shop in my sinus cavities and have been using my lungs as a fricking waterslide. I coughed so hard the other night that I think I gave myself a small hernia.

That’s got nothing to do with what I’m talking about here, though.

What I’m here to talk about is that we had us a show a few weeks back, and it went really well! I had a ton of fun, despite some really frustrating technical difficulties in the beginning.

The Kraine Theater is this dank, crumbling space in the East Village, the sort of place that feels like it’s haunted by a bunch of old men in long raincoats. It made a certain kind of sonic sense to hear someone kick over a beer bottle during the show, and when an old lady showed up in a sun hat with a Mike-Tyson face tattoo drawn on with eye liner, I wasn’t even surprised. OF COURSE we had one of those. It was that kind of show.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still wanted to kick the wrinkles out of that old bat when she started heckling the comedian. I like weirdos in the audience and all, but I really prefer when they stay quiet.

Still, I had a ton of fun, and I’m pretty sure the crowd did, too.

I talked to the theater director about the show today, and I think we are going to start doing this quarterly.

One thing I know, though: we’re bringing this show up to Albany, NY in mid-August. We’ll be performing in Saint Joe’s Church, what appears to be this amazing crumbling cathedral in downtown Albany. I’d love to make a little tour out of it, maybe play in Boston, Providence, BUffalo, what have you. If any of you book shows in bars, clubs or theaters in that area and want some storytellers and burlesque people to come up, do please let me know.

And if you happened to be in the audience on Sunday, thank you so, so much for coming. It was a jam, for real.

Look, I know I’m flogging this live show on Sunday pretty hard. But I’m really, really excited about it, and I think you guys should be, too.

Our good friend and fellow storyteller Tracy Rowland just made us a magnificent trailer for Sunday’s show, and I’d be remiss in my mission to promote awesomeness on the Internet if I didn’t share it here. There is some mild language, almost- nudity. Which is maybe a selling point:

The music is by Richmond, VA sweatrock legends RPG, permission given by Matt Conner. Show info after the jump:
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This week on the Standard Issues podcast we have an discussion I recorded this past week with Jeff Simmermon and Cyndi Freeman about the upcoming And I Am Not Lying live show. We also cover stalker-esque behavior, the history of the blog, being douchified by the media powers that be.

You can receive our wisdom via the magic of iTunes.

The always-excellent ScoutingNY blog has an excellent post tracking down all of the exterior locations in Ghostbusters. I was pretty amazed to see that the firehouse that was the Ghostbusters’ home base is still functional, and just a few blocks from my gym — right there on the corner of North Moore and Varick Street.

Naturally, I went over there and took a few pics:

It’s still fully functional. I wonder how long it takes for the magic to wear off for the firefighters that get assigned there.

It’s easy to forget that life is a gift. And it’s easy to overlook the essential humanity of so many people out there on the Internet. It’s easy to get mad at people’s gripes and whines and forget that the Web can be a tool to expand your empathy and connect with people outside your regular routine.

But this video yanked me out of my regular routine and deep into the wild currents of the human experience. I don’t know whether to cheer or weep, to hug somebody or go be alone. My eyes swelled and leaked a little, and I could actually feel my heart expand in my chest.

It’s by a disabled woman who carefully, methodically explains why it’s so upsetting to be called “retarded.”

These are her words:

I made this video after seeing a number of things: Other disabled people rushing to prove that they were not some thing called “retarded,” being referred to here as a “mong” and other such words myself (on and off YouTube) as well as seeing lots of pointless ridicule directed at people with developmental disabilities, and being asked questions about what it’s like to be considered “retarded” in casual contacts with people, or to “look retarded”, whatever that means. I explore these questions, and the prejudice and dehumanization that surrounds cognitive disability of all sorts, in my video.

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Standard Issues volume 10 is up – maybe episode 10? If you have opinions on whether podcasts should have episodes or volumes, let me know – and this one features features an emergency call to Japan’s version of 911 by someone who does not speak Japanese and happens to be on LSD,  a piece of high school writing that the adult who wrote it was brave enough to share on stage, and testimony from someone who went to a wilderness camp that has now been shuttered for child endangerment.

If you have been following the podcast you might remember that I started off with a couple of interviews with storytellers in New York. Well, I am about to do a new round of that. This time, to coincide with the AndIAmNotLying live show on the 17th, the sit down will be with all the folks who contribute to this blog.

So, check out Volume or Episode 10, and then come back next week for 11 and to hear the inspiration for all of this right from Jeff, David, and Cyndi. And me.

I’d apologize for being all self-promotional, except I’m not really all that sorry. See, back in December me and my friends David William and Brad Lawrence and Cyndi Freeman put on a live show loosely based on this very blog that we work on (or slack on, more typically) together. And you know what? It went REAL well!

It went so well that we’re now being asked to do another one in a theater that’s double the size. I’m trying to put asses into seats here.

But look: we’re going to be telling stories, seeing some comedy, watching a puppet get all its teeth yanked out at the dentist and then look at some belly-dancing and burlesque.

There’s going to be a whole lot of shaking going on in between all the sensitive people telling witty stories about their precious feelings. Balances it out nicely, I think.

Here’s a flyer, followed by a trailer. Detailed info after the jump:

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My fascination with Wonder Woman started when I was a kid. Wonder Woman’s first season was set during WWII and she was a brunette just like me and kicking Nazi ass. This was the same year that I was learning about the Holocaust in Hebrew school

My other favorite show was Hogan’s Heroes.

There was no chick who looked just like me, but they were cool guys thwarting Nazis. This prompted me and a friend from Hebrew school named Janet to write our own script entitled Wonder Woman Meets Hogan’s Heroes. Alas, I do not have any documentation of this fine work of art. But for months we acted out the scenes that we crafted in her basement.

So while doing my research on my Wonder Woman show, I did a look into Hogan’s heroes and discovered. Almost all the Nazi characters were played by Jewish actors, many of whom had lost their families at the hands of the Nazis. There is a tribute site that has been set up for them – Hogan’s Jews - It is an informative and entertaining read.

But, here are some other things I’d like to share. Now the show has always had its critics and I have always disagreed with them.

Several years back The Boston Globe printed an article written by reporter Renee Graham, she had this to say about the show,

“Call this political correctness if you like, but under no circumstances should a film of `Hogan’s Heroes’ be made. For those who don’t remember, this was the 1960′s World War II comedy starring Bob Crane, Werner Klemperer and John Banner that presented the Nazis as the biggest cutups since the Keystone Kops. Let’s be clear here: Nazis are never, ever funny. Ever. So it’s with great joy that I report that the film version of `Hogan’ is on ice, at least for now.”

Where I respect her disdain of Nazis (yick!) I accept her outrage but counter it with this:

“I was never crazy about Hitler,” says Mel Brooks. Who was? But even now, more than 50 years after the fall of the Third Reich, the man who masterminded the extermination of more than 7 million people is still handled with care, as if the magnitude of his crime demands no less. Brooks had the guts, and gall, to realize that the simplest way to demolish Hitler was to mock him.

“If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win,” says Brooks, 75. “That’s what they do so well; they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter–they can’t win. You show how crazy they are.”

Hogan’s Heroes was revenge through sitcom.
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